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THE  HISTORY  AND  THE  FUTURE 
OF  THE  TALMUDIC  TEXT 

A   LECTURE 

DELIVERED    BEFORE    THE 

GRATZ   COLLEGE    OF    PHILADELPHIA 
December  9,  1895 

BY 

MARCUS   JASTROW,    PH.  D. 

Rabbi  Emeritus  of  the  Congregation  Rodef  Shalom 


(Reprinted  from  Gratz  College  Publication  No.  I.) 


PHILADELPHIA 
1897 


THE   HISTORY  AND  THE   FUTURE  OF  THE 
TEXT  OF  THE  TALMUD, 

BY 

MARCUS  JASTROW,  PH.  D., 
Rabbi  Emeritus  of  the  Congregation  Rodef  Shalom,  Philadelphia. 


2095313 


THE   HISTORY  AND  THE   FUTURE  OF  THE 
TEXT  OF  THE  TALMUD. 

BY   MARCUS   JA8TROW,    PH.   D. 

The  Talmud  has  often  been  called  a  Cyclopedia.  If 
by  this  we  understand  a  collection  of  information  on  all 
subjects  of  human  thought  and  practice,  the  Talmud 
may  deserve  the  name,  inasmuch  as  virtually  there  is 
not  a  branch  of  human  industry  of  ancient  days  that 
does  not  find  mention  in  it,  not  a  problem  of  human 
speculation  that  is  not  attacked  in  it,  not  a  science  or 
pseudo-science  that  is  not  discussed  in  it. 

But  it  is  a  cyclopedia  in  which  that  is  wanting  which 
forms  the  main  feature  of  a  cyclopedia,  namely,  order 
and  systematic  arrangement. 

I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  there  is  no  logical  order  in 
the  discussions  and  even  the  digressions,  or  that  there 
is  no  systematic  arrangement  of  subjects  in  the  volumes 
of  the  Talmud.  What  is  wanting  is  the  arrangement 
of  the  matter ;  what  makes  familiarity  with  the  Talmud 
difficult  to  obtain  is  the  absence  of  a  guide  in  the  laby- 
rinth to  tell  us  wh,ere  we  may  find  what  we  are  seek- 
ing. 

The  history  of  the  formation  of  the  Talmud  and  of  its 
final  redaction  in  the  present  shape  accounts  for  its  pecu- 
liar character. 

The  Talmud  is  a  collection  of  traditional  laws  and  dis- 
cussions in  schools  and  academies,  decisions  in  courts 
and  colleges,  interpretations,  legal  and  homiletical,  in 
synagogues  and  schoolhouses, — all  of  them  preserved 
and  developed  in  the  national  mind,  until  finally  reduced 
to  writing. 


4  THE   GRATZ  COLLEGE   OF  PHILADELPHIA. 

Chronologically  speaking,  it  is  divided  into  Mishnah 
and  Gemara.  The  former  contains  a  collection  of  laws 
and  discussions  of  the  period  of  the  early  teachers,  named 
Tannaim,  comprising  at  least  four  centuries.  There 
are  elements  in  the  Mishnah  pointing  back  to  the  second 
century  before  our  present  era,  while  its  latest  elements 
lead  us  to  the  beginning  of  the  third  century  of  the 
present  era. 

The  Gemara  is  a  collection  of  laws  and  discussions  of 
the  period  named  after  the  Amoraim  (lectors),  which 
comprises  about  three  centuries. 

In  spite  of  its  later  development,  however,  the  Gemara, 
in  the  shape  of  citations  as  a  basis  for  discussion,  has 
preserved  elements  of  tradition  as  old  as,  and  even  older 
than,  the  oldest  constituent  parts  of  the  Mishnah.  Its 
close  and  reduction  to  writing  took  place  in  about  500  of 
the  present  era. 

But  chronological  dates  are  like  the  dates  of  the  palm- 
tree,  dry  and  tasteless ;  the  real,  spiritual  fruits  on  the 
tree  of  knowledge  are  not  affected  by  time  or  season; 
they  often  ripen  in  the  most  uncongenial  climates, 
and  shrivel  and  fade  under  the  most  genial  sun. 

To  know  the  nature  of  the  Talmud,  we  must  know  the 
character  of  the  mental  processes  crystallized  in  the  pro- 
ceedings, the  synopsis  of  which  is  deposited  in  the 
Talmud. 

What  do  these  minutes  of  the  sessions  of  scholars  in 
the  course  of  eight  centuries  contain  ? 

The  only  exhaustive  answer  would  be  another  ques- 
tion :  "  What  do  they  not  contain  ?" 

To  form  a  table  of  contents  of  the  Talmud  is  impossi- 
ble. All  we  can  say  is  that,  logically  divided,  it  con- 
tains two  elements,  the  legal  element  (Halakhah),  includ- 


HISTORY  AND  FUTURE  OF  THE  TALMUD  TEXT.—JASTROW.  0 

ing  religious,  civil,  and  criminal  legislation,  discussions, 
and  decisions,  and  a  medley  of  observations,  incidental  to 
these  legal  discussions,  on  all  possible  topics.  For  conveni- 
ence sake  we  call  this  second  element  of  the  Talmud, 
Agadah  (Talk).  There  you  meet  serious  and  often  ingeni- 
ous Bible  exegesis,  alongside  of  sportive  plays  on  words 
and  shrewd  scholastic  sophistry ;  grave  History  and  her 
charming  little  sisters,  Anecdote  and  Legend ;  Medicine 
and  her  parents,  Magic  and  Superstition ;  Astronomy 
and  her  older  companion,  Astrology ;  Metaphysics  and 
her  next-door  neighbor,  Mysticism,  and — I  regret  that 
I  have  nothing  but  an  et  cetera  for  the  rest  of  the  thoughts 
and  things  contained  in  that  store-house  called  the 
Agadah. 

All  these  productions  of  the  Jewish  mind  of  eight  cen- 
turies were  stored  in  the  national  memory  for  ages  and 
ages.  The  traditions  were  taught  orally  in  schools  and 
academies,  the  notes  taken  down  now  and  then  by  indi- 
vidual scholars  having  no  value  beyond  that  of 
mnemonic  guides  to  the  student  writing  them.  At  last 
the  time  was  considered  ripe  to  reduce  these  verbal 
communications  to  writing,  and  to  edit  them  in  the  form 
in  which  they  appear  in  the  Mishnah  and  Gemarah 
respectively.  Thus  was  created  a  store-house  wherein 
the  ages  could  lay  down  their  productions,  or  at  least 
specimens  thereof,  protected  from  the  storms  of  political 
changes  and  the  ravages  of  time. 

When  speaking  generally  of  the  Gemara,  we  mean 
the  collection  of  post-Mishnic  discussions  which  had 
their  origin  in,  or  were  brought  to,  the  Babylonian 
academies,  especially  those  of  Sura  and  Pumbeditha. 

There  is,  however,  a  similar,  somewhat  older  col- 
lection, which  contains  the  result  of  the  debates  held  in 


6  THE  ORATZ  COLLEGE   OF  PHILADELPHIA. 

the  Palestinian  schools,  and  which  bears  the  name  of 
Talmud  Yerushalmi,  or  Jerusalem  Talmud.  Fragmen- 
tary in  condition,  and  lapidary  in  style,  it  has  the 
character  of  stenographic  notes  rather  than  of  an  edited 
book.  Its  history  cannot  be  told,  for  it  is  the  history  of 
neglect.  These  preliminary  remarks  were  necessary  in 
order  to  make  us  understand  the  history  of  the  Talmudic 
Text,  or,  we  should  rather  say,  Texts. 

The  Talmudic  texts  have  a  pre-original  history  ;  they 
had  life  and  development  before  they  were  born.  The 
Mishnah,  we  have  seen,  existed  and  grew  for  centuries 
in  a  liquid  state  (if  I  may  use  the  expression)  before  it 
was  crystallized  into  its  present  shape,  and  the  Gemara 
likewise  lived  and  developed  in  the  mouth  of  tradition 
from  generation  to  generation,  arid  its  text  has  therefore 
a  pre-original  history. 

Tradition  with  the  Jewish  people,  as  with  the  Arabs, 
has  not  that  vague  meaning  which  we  generally  attach 
to  it.  Tradition  is  a  verbatim  report,  a  faithful  docu- 
mentary record  of  proceedings,  debates,  and  final  deci- 
sions and  enactments,  together  with  all  the  incidents  and 
digressions  liable  to  come  up  in  courts,  which  are  at  the 
same  time  schools,  and  in  schools,  the  headmasters  of 
which  are  vested  with  the  authority  of  practical  judges. 
A  tradition  is  called  sh'mu'ah,  or  sh'm'ata  (that  which 
has  been  heard),  and  its  reporter  gives  his  immediate 
authority  and  all  preceding  authorities.  Only  when  the 
chain  of  tradition  becomes  too  long,  the  reporter  is  per- 
mitted to  leave  out  the  links  between  his  own  immediate 
teacher,  and  the  earliest  authority  traceable. 

It  is  not  sufficient  to  deliver  the  sense  of  a  practical  or 
theoretical  decision  (or  halakhah) ;  you  must  give  the  very 
words  as  you  heard  them  from  your  teacher. 


HISTORY  AND  FUTURE  OF  THE  TALMUD  TEXT.—JASTROW.  7 

Here  is  an  example :  In  a  discussion  in  the  Mishnah 
concerning  the  quantity  of  drawn  water  sufficient  to  dis- 
qualify a  tank  from  use  for  ritual  immersion,  it  is  re- 
ported, "  Hillel  says, '  a  Hin  of  drawn  water  disqualifies  a 
bath,'  while  Shammai  says,  'nine  Kab  are  required  for 
disqualification.'  "  (Eduyoth  I,  3.) 

You  observe,  the  one  makes  the  Hin  (which  is  three 
Kab)  a  standard  measure,  the  other  uses  Kab  for  the  pur- 
pose. The  editor  of  the  Mishnah,  feeling  the  incongruity 
in  his  text,  apologizes  by  adding,  "  One  must  report  in 
the  very  language  of  one's  teacher." 

Hillel  had  a  preference  for  the  old  Biblical  measure 
Hin,  and  thus  the  tradition  had  to  go  down  the  ages 
with  Hillel  as  author  and  Hin  as  measure,  although  the 
term  was  no  longer  used  in  practical  life. 

This  instance  referring  to  the  Mishnah,  let  me  quote 
another  example,  which  will  serve  to  illustrate  the  origin 
of  the  Gemara.  In  obedience  to  the  rule  of  tradition,  I 
shall  translate  verbatim  : 

"  Said  Rab  Judah,  son  of  Rab  Samuel,  son  of  Shilath, 
in  the  name  of  Rab  :  '  The  guests  around  the  table  are 
not  permitted  to  eat  anything  until  he  who  breaks  the 
bread  has  tasted.'  When  Rab  Safra  sat  down  [to  teach], 
he  said,  '  to  taste  has  been  said,' "  which  means  that  the 
text  reads,  the  guests  must  not  taste  anything  until  he 
who  breaks  the  bread  has  tasted. 

The  question  now  is  asked,  what  difference  is  there 
between  the  two  forms  of  expression  ?  And  the  answer 
is,  "  One  is  bound  to  report  in  the  language  of  one's 
teacher." 

Even  differences  in  spelling  are  faithfully  recorded  and 
commented  upon.  Rab  and  Samuel,  we  are  told,  differed 
as  to  whether  ed  (an  idolatrous  festival)  was  to  be  spelled 


8  THE  GRATZ  COLLEGE   OF  PHILADELPHIA. 

with  an  Alef  or  with  an  'Ayin,  and  the  reasons  for  the 
two  forms  are  freely  discussed,  although  not  very  satis- 
factorily to  our  linguistic  conceptions.  (Erubin  2a .) 

However,  in  spite  of  all  these  safeguards,  variations 
and  corruptions  have  arisen  and  have  been  verbally 
transmitted  from  generation  to  generation. 

Two  causes  account  for  these  shortcomings  of  the  na- 
tional mind  :  the  migration  of  the  material  from  land  to 
land,  and  the  fallibility  of  human  memory,  especially 
when  dependent  on  oral  transmission. 

As  you  are  aware,  there  were  two  centres  of  Jewish 
learning  in  those  days.  Palestine  and  Babylonia  con- 
tended with  each  other  for  the  crown  of  scholarship, 
and  students,  solicitous  to  have  the  benefits  of  both 
schools,  traveled  from  Sura  and  Pumbeditha  to  Tiberias, 
enriching  Palestine  with  Babylonian  opinions,  and  on 
returning  to  Babylonia  brought  valuable  material  for 
the  workshop  of  the  Babylonian  mind. 

But  the  medium  of  communication  between  these  two 
countries  offered  some  difficulties.  The  Hebrew  and  the 
Chaldaic  spoken  in  Babylonia  differed  dialectically  from 
the  Palestinian  tongues ;  not  enough,  it  is  true,  to  prevent 
mutual  understanding,  but  just  enough  to  produce  occa- 
sional misunderstandings.  But  the  two  countries  had  for 
centuries  been  ruled  by  different  nations,  which  naturally 
left  their  impress  upon  the  language  of  the  Jews. 

Institutions  and  customs  of  the  Greeks  and  Romans 
furnished  Greek  and  Latin  words  to  the  Palestinian 
vocabulary,  and  in  like  manner  the  Babylonian  Jews,  al- 
though very  sparsely,  introduced  into  their  language 
Persian  words  and  phrases. 

On  this  point  I  may  be  permitted  a  slight  digression 
from  the  subject  before  us. 


HISTORY  AND  FUTURE  OF  THE  TALMUD  TEXT.—JASTROW.        9 

A  general  impression  (I  may  well  call  it  a  prejudice) 
prevails,  that  the  idiom  of  the  Talmuds,  especially 
that  of  the  Babylonian  Talmud,  is  a  motley  mixture 
of  words  borrowed  from  all  sorts  of  languages  and 
dialects,  neighboring  or  distant,  living  in  those  days  or 
extinct — nay,  even  unborn.  Up  to  the  present  day 
linguistic  students  have  helped  to  confirm  the  prejudice. 
They  ransacked  the  abstrusest  dialects  and  remotest 
literatures,  and  drew  phonetical  analogies  between 
languages  that  had  never  come  in  contact  with 
each  other. 

The  philological  method  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
which  Swift  so  ingeniously  parodied  when  he  derived 
the  name  of  Alexander  the  Great  from  the  order  "  All 
eggs  under  the  grate,"  which  his  English-speaking  at- 
tendants were  wont  to  issue  when  the  great  monarch, 
who  was  fond  of  roasted  eggs,  approached  his  palace, — 
this  phonetic  philology,  long  ago  discarded  in  all 
other  fields  of  linguistic  research,  still  survives  to  a 
large  extent  in  Talmudic  studies. 

Only  recently  has  the  idea  dawned,  or,  rather,  begun 
to  dawn,  upon  philologians  that  the  language  of  the 
Talmud  was  developed  under  the  same  organic  laws  as 
any  other  tongue,  and  that  the  extension  of  ideas  and 
the  growth  of  mental  and  material  influences  caused  a 
natural  and  internal  development  and  transformation 
of  the  linguistic  elements  available. 

Assyrian  discoveries,  too,  have  come  and  are  still  daily 
coining  to  the  rescue  of  the  dignity  of  the  Talmudic  lan- 
guage, and  many  a  word  hitherto  believed  to  be  a  pho- 
netic corruption  and  mental  distortion  of  a  Greek,  or 
Persian,  or  Pehlevi,  or  Huzvar  expression,  is  now  recog- 
nized to  be  of  good  Semitic  origin,  and  the  Talmud,  on 


10  THE   GRATZ  COLLEGE   OF  PHILADELPHIA. 

its  part,  repays  these  services  of  the  Assyrian  monuments 
richly  by  helping  Assyriologists  to  decipher  many  an 
obscure  expression  and  doubtful  reading. 

But  worthless  are  both  a  language  and  a  civilization 
that  do  not  borrow  ideas  and  their  verbal  representatives 
from  their  surroundings.  Our  English  language  would 
never  have  been  so  rich  and  flexible  as  it  is,  had  it 
not  increased  its  working  capital  by  borrowing  from  all 
accessible  banks  and  treasuries. 

In  the  same  way  the  widening  of  views  through 
contact  with  other  nations  produced  a  literar}^  language 
for  the  Jews  of  Palestine  and  of  Babylonia,  enriched 
through  legitimate  and  conscious  importations  of  foreign 
elements. 

These  influences,  however,  differed  in  the  two  centres 
of  Jewish  settlement  and  Jewish  learning.  Words  well 
understood  in  one  land  were  carried  to  the  other,  and,  the 
means  of  communication  being  mainty  the  tongue,  and 
but  rarely  the  pen,  the  importations  naturally  were 
often  misshapen  and  not  infrequently  misunderstood. 

A  few  illustrations  may  not  be  out  of  place  here. 

The  discussion  is  recorded  in  the  Babylonian  Talmud 
as  to  how  bright  a  light  must  be  in  order  that  the  bene- 
diction customary  at  the  exit  of  the  Sabbath  might  be 
said  over  it.  "  Ulla  said,  bright  enough  for  one  to  dis- 
tinguish between  an  Isar  (the  Roman  As)  and  a  Pundion 
(the  Roman  Dipondiuni).  Hiskiah  said,  bright  enough 
for  one  to  distinguish  between  the  M'luzma  of  Tiberias 
and  the  M'luzma  of  Sepphoris." 

You  see  at  a  glance,  that  this  is  a  Palestinian  tradi- 
tion brought  verbatim  to  Babylonia.  The  scenery  is 
Palestinian,  the  coins  are  those  current  in  Palestine  under 
the  Roman  government,  Tiberias  and  Sepphoris  are  Pales- 


HISTORY  AND  FUTURE  OF  THE  TALMUD  TEXT.—JA8TROW.        11 

tinian  towns,  and  the  authors  quoted,  it  is  needless  to 
say,  are  Palestinians,  native  or  immigrant.  What,  now, 
is  the  word  M'luzmaf  From  the  context  as  well  as  from 
tradition — for  a  living  tradition  accompanies  the  written 
Gemara,  almost  in  the  same  manner  as  the  verbal 
Gemara  accompanied  the  Mishnah — we  know,  that 
M'luzma  means  the  stamp  or  legend  of  a  coin.  There  can 
be  no  doubt  that  it  is  a  foreign  word,  either  Greek  or 
Latin.  What  was  its  sound  originally  ?  It  was  the 
Greek  nomisma,  which  was  adopted  into  Latin  as 
numisma,  and  which  survives  in  our  numismatics. 

By  what  phonetic  process  could  numisma  in  its  trans- 
mission from  Palestine  to  Babylonia  have  been  corrupted 
into  m'luzmat — for  students  need  not  be  reminded  that 
there  is  a  phonetic  law  for  corruptions  as  well  as  for 
legitimate  growth. 

Now,  the  Latin  nummus  appears  in  the  Talmud  as 
lumma ;  the  plural  nummi  as  lummin;  the  Apostle  Lucas 
(Luke)  is  mentioned  as  Nakai.  In  accordance  with  this 
dialectic  law  of  "  Lautverschiebung,"  numisma  would  be 
changed  into  lumisma,  and  for  the  Babylonian  tongue  it 
was  more  convenient  to  say  meluzma  than  lumisma,  just 
as  it  is  easier  to  the  English  tongue  to  say  summersalt  or 
summerset  than  soprasalto,  as  the  Italian  has  it. 

Another  and  more  interesting  corruption,  owing  to 
migration  from  Palestine  to  Babylonia,  is  the  following : 

There  was  an  institution  in  the  Roman  empire  called 
angaria,  a  word  borrowed  from  the  Persian,  and  denoting 
the  service  which  a  Roman  officer  in  the  provinces  was 
entitled  to  exact  from  the  inhabitants  of  the  places 
through  which  they  marched,  as  the  seizure  of  men  and 
beasts  for  paving  the  roads,  for  transport  of  war  material, 
and  the  like. 


12  THE   GRATZ   COLLEGE   OF  PHILADELPHIA. 

This  institution  is  well  known  in  the  Talmud,  and  it 
gives  rise  to  nice  questions  of  law,  as,  for  instance,  if  one 
hires  an  ass  and  it  is  seized  for  angaria,  whether  or  not 
the  owner  is  bound  to  furnish  another  beast  in  place  of 
the  confiscated  one.  A  distinction  is  drawn  between  an 
angaria  which  comes  back  to  the  place  whence  it  started, 
and  an  angaria  which  does  not  come  back,  in  which  case 
the  owner  has  to  help  himself  to  his  property  as  well  as 
he  can.  (Baba  Metsia  78b .) 

The  discussion  of  this  point  is  reported  in  the  name  of 
Rab  and  Samuel,  both  of  whom  were  Babylonians  who 
had  been  pursuing  their  studies  in  Palestine,  and  who, 
on  their  return,  became  the  founders  of  Talmud  schools 
in  their  respective  homes. 

Now,  this  mental  migration  was  accomplished  with- 
out any  injury  to  word  or  sense. 

But  there  was  a  similar  institution  known  in  the  Roman 
empire,  which  bore  the  name  of  parangaria.  It  was  the  ex- 
tra service  which  Roman  officials  had  a  right  to  demand, 
but  for  which  they  had  to  pay  remuneration  or  indem- 
nities. 

Again  it  is  Rab  who  brings  the  traditional  law  con- 
nected with  this  institution  to  Babylonia.  The  law  is, 
that  he  who  sells  his  slave  for  the  parangaria,  has  for- 
feited his  ownership,  and  the  slave,  when  dismissed  from 
the  public  service  for  which  he  has  been  bought,  goes  free. 

The  question  is  raised,  what  could  the  slave-owner  do 
to  retain  his  slave  ?  The  answer  follows,  that  he  might 
have  conciliated  the  officer  by  paying  the  requisite 
amount,  or  by  furnishing  a  substitute,  and  not  having 
done  so,  he  surrendered  his  rights.  (Gittin  44a). 

Again  the  distinction  is  drawn  between  the  parangaria 
which  returns  and  that  which  does  not. 


HISTORY  AND  FUTURE  OF  THE  TALMUD  TEXT.—JA8TROW.        13 

But  through  some  mistake  the  word  parangaria  appears 
as  parhang  goy,  which  is  "  a  gentile  parhang,"  and  the 
commentators,  interpreting  according  to  the  sense,  ex- 
plain parhang  to  mean  a  man  of  power,  an  oppressor, 
ignoring  the  grammatical  difficulty  that  our  word  is  used 
in  the  feminine  gender.  To  add  to  the  confusion,  later 
editions  have  changed  the  somewhat  odious  goy  into  the 
more  refined  nokhri,  and  thus,  in  place  of  the  plain  paran- 
garia, arose  the  monster  parhang  nokhri,  a  female,  and 
a  puzzle  to  the  linguistic  student. 

Yet,  even  this  corruption,  though  distorting  the  sense 
to  some  extent,  is  harmless,  compared  with  the  injury 
done  by  misreporting  a  traditional  halakhah,  and  causing  a 
discussion  based  on  a  mistake. 

Let  me  give  you  one  glaring  example. 

The  Roman  law  had  a  mode  of  manumission  of  a  slave 
known  by  the  name  ofvindicta  or  vindicalio.  "  The  master 
brought  his  slave  before  the  magistrate  ;  the  Lictor  laid  a 
rod  on  the  head  of  the  slave,  accompanied  with  certain 
formal  words,  in  which  he  declares  that  he  is  henceforth 
a  free  man  ex  jure  Quiritium.  The  master,  in  the  mean- 
time, held  the  slave,  and  after  he  had  pronounced  the 
words,  '  Huiic  hominem  liberum  volo,'  he  turned  him 
round  and  let  him  go."* 

"  When  a  slave  obtained  his  freedom,  he  had  his  head 
shaven,  and  wore  instead  of  his  hair  an  undyed  pileus 
(cap).  The  figure  of  Liberty  on  some  of  the  coins  of 
Antoninus  Pius  holds  this  cap  in  the  right  hand."  f 

These  two  symbols  of  manumission  were,  of  course, 
well  known  in  Palestine,  and  were  made  the  subject  of  Tal- 
mudic  law,  not  without  a  practical  purpose.  The  Jews 


*  See  Smith  Antiquities,  s.  v.  Manumissio. 
t  Ib..  s.  v.  Pileus. 


14  THE   GRATZ   COLLEGE    OF  PHILADELPHIA. 

under  the  Roman  government,  although  holding  fast 
'to  their  own  laws,  and  clinging  to  their  own  juris- 
diction, had  to  deal  with  these  Roman  forms,  and  the 
question  how  far  these  forms  had  to  be  recognized,  was 
forced  upon  them  by  the  political  conditions  under 
which  they  lived  and  struggled  hard  to  maintain  as 
much  of  their  independence  as  they  possibly  could.  We 
find,  therefore,  in  the  Palestinian  Talmud,  that  a  slave 
freed  by  the  form  of  manumission  called  vindicta,  or  by 
proving  that  he  had  been  permitted  to  wear  the  cap  of 
liberty  without  protest,  needed,  nevertheless,  a  letter 
of  manumission  (Get)  issued  under  Jewish  jurisdiction. 
(Yerush  Gittin  IV.,  45b). 

On  the  other  hand,  an  old  treatise  on  slaves,  not  em- 
bodied in  the  Talmud  collection,  says:  "A  slave  becomes 
free  by  antukta  (which  is  vindicta),  and  also  by  a  record 
found  in  the  owner's  pinax  (account-book)  or  in  tablets, 
but  cannot  claim  his  liberty  on  the  ground  of  wearing  a 
cap."  (Treatise  'Abadim  in  Septem  Libri  Talm.,  ed 
Kirchheim,  p.  30). 

Now,  this  tradition  came  to  Babylonia,  where  those 
symbols  of  liberty  were  unknown,  and  it  assumed  the  fol- 
lowing curious  form.  I  shall  again  translate  verbatim  : 

"  A  slave  that  went  out  by  dint  of  a  writing  on  a  tab- 
let or  account-book,  goes  free,  but  he  does  not  go  free  by 
dint  of  a  writing  on  a  cap  or  andukhtra."  (Gittin  20a). 

The  tradition  just  quoted  is  brought  up  in  connection 
with  a  discussion  on  the  form  of  writing  necessary  to 
give  validity  to  a  document  of  manumission  or  divorce. 
Whether  or  not  engraven  or  raised  letters  were  a 
legal  form  of  writing,  is  the  question  under  dispute,  and 
the  tradition  just  cited  is  adduced  in  evidence  of  respect- 
ive legality  and  illegality. 


HISTORY  AND  FUTURE  OF  THE  TALMUD  TEXT.—JASTROW.        15 

Writing  on  wax-covered  tablets  or  books  is  engraving, 
while  writing  on  a  cap  can  only  be  thought  of  as 
embroidery,  and,  by  a  natural  analogy,  the  same  applies 
to  the  andukhtra. 

Thus,  the  curious  andukhtra  or  undakhtre,  in  which  we 
could  not  have  recognized  the  vindicta,  were  it  not  for  the 
parallels  in  Palestinian  literature,  where  the  word  is  not 
yet  corrupted  beyond  recognition,  becomes  in  Babylonia  a 
garment  on  which  a  letter  of  manumission  is  embroidered. 

The  difficulty  of  coping  with  these  importations  could 
not  but  be  deeply  felt.  Very  frequently  an  interpreta- 
tion of  foreign  words  is  asked  for  and  in  a  more  or  less 
correct  way  given  in  the  very  discussions  in  which  they 
incidentally  appear,  and  many  a  student  found  it  profit- 
able to  compose  a  glossary  for  his  own  use. 

Such  a  glossary  was  called  Agadta,  the  Chaldaic  equiv- 
alent of  Agadah,  the  general  expression  for  a  collection 
of  miscellanies. 

A  scholar  in  the  course  of  a  debate  in  Babylonia 
mentions  some  Greek  words  as  he  has  heard  them  in 
Palestine,  or  from  a  Palestinian  scholar,  as,  for  instance, 
kynege  (hunter),  ballistre  (archer),  and  the  presiding 
teacher  says  to  his  amanuensis,  "  Go  and  write  kynege 
and  ballistre  in  thy  collection." 

Nor  did  the  Babylonians  take  kindly  to  the  foreign 
teachers  who  burdened  them  with  expressions  which  they 
considered  uncouth.  We  are  told  that  when  R.  Ammi 
and  R.  Assi  were  installed  as  rabbis,  the  students,  mock- 
ing at  the  frequent  display  of  Greek  and  Latin  by 
their  teachers,  sang,  "  Such  men,  such  men,  appoint  for 
us,  but  do  not  give  us  men  that  talk  sermis,  sennit, 
hemis,  tremis"  (Kethuboth  17a;  Sanhedrin  14il). 

But  considering  that  all  these  importations  of  matter 


16  THE   GRATZ  COLLEGE   OF  PHILADELPHIA. 

and  of  words  were  carried  by  the  least  reliable  vehicles 
of  communication,  ears  and  lips,  we  are  warranted  in 
saying  that,  on  the  whole,  the  condition  of  the  text  of 
the  Babylonian  Talmud  is  a  true  reflection  of  the  state 
of  culture  and  intercourse  prevailing  in  the  days  preced- 
ing its  redaction,  and  of  the  intellectual  intercourse 
between  the  two  countries. 

Another  source  of  corruption  is  the  uncertainty  of 
human  memory.  Names  especially  are  subject  to  errors 
in  the  process  of  transmission. 

We  find,  therefore,  very  frequently,  that  a  tradition  is 
reported  in  the  name  of  A,  B,  and  C,  and  an  editorial  re- 
mark is  added :  "Some  say,  in  the  name  of  D,  E,  and  F." 

No  less  frequent  are  such  editorial  glosses  concerning 
opinions  and  subjects,  as,  for  instance :  "  Some  say, 
that  the  course  of  the  discussion  and  its  result  are  not  as 
just  reported,  but  ran  thus." 

These  editorial  glosses,  so  frequent  in  the  Babylonian 
Talmud,  serving  on  the  one  hand  as  adequate  evidence 
of  the  uncertainties  that  arose  during  the  period  of  its 
oral  transmission,  are,  on  the  other  hand,  a  guarantee  of 
the  great  care  given  to  accuracy  of  tradition,  both  in 
names  and  in  substance. 

It  is  strange,  indeed,  that  writing  should  have  proved 
more  prejudicial  to  accuracy  than  oral  delivery,  yet  such 
is  the  fact. 

The  main  variations  and  corruptions  of  the  Talmudic 
texts  arose  during  the  period  following  the  reduction  to 
writing,  when  each  school  procured  a  number  of  copies 
made  by  professional  copyists.  As  soon  as  copying  be- 
came a  profession,  the  texts  passed  from  the  control  of 
their  traditional  guardians,  and  became  dependent  on 
the  greater  or  less  faithfulness  and  care  of  the  writers 


HISTORY  AND  FUTURE  OF  THE  TALMUD  TEXT.—JASTROW.         17 

— nay,  even  on  the  greater  or  less  distinctness  of  the 
copyists'  handwriting. 

Who  were  the  copyists  ?  That  they  were  not  abun- 
dantly blessed  with  worldly  goods,  we  should  sur- 
mise, even  were  we  not  told  in  the  Talmud,  that  the 
Men  of  the  Great  Assembly  spent  twenty-four  days  in 
fasting  and  in  praying  that  the  copyists  of  S'farim, 
T'fillin,  and  M'zuzoth  might  never  grow  rich,  for,  if  they 
did,  they  would  soon  abandon  their  occupation. 

Troubled  minds  are  not  apt  to  be  very  accurate. 
The  Bible  was  under  the  control  of  the  Massorah  which 
had  counted  the  words  and  the  letters  of  the  entire 
Scriptures,  and  given  immutable  fixity  to  spelling,  to 
marks,  and  interspaces ;  but  there  was  no  such  standard 
in  existence  for  Talmudic  books,  and  their  texts  were 
subject  to  the  influences  which  affected  the  copyists  and 
the  Jewish  people  at  large. 

Persecutions  and  migrations  from  place  to  place  could 
not  but  have  a  disturbing  effect  on  the  ease  of  mind 
required  for  painstaking  accuracy  in  literary  pursuits. 

Consider  the  quiet  and  retirement  from  the  noises  of 
the  world  which  the  monks  enjoyed  in  their  cloisters  and 
could  well  utilize  for  the  preservation  of  the  literatures 
of  the  world,  ancient  and  modern,  and  contrast  with  it 
the  troubles  and  toils,  the  fears  and  dangers,  to  which  the 
dwellers  of  the  Beth  Hammidrash  were  subject  as  mem- 
bers of  a  homeless  people. 

Nay,  not  only  the  people  of  the  Talmud,  but  even 
the  Talmud  itself  was  persecuted.  As  early  as  the  sixth 
century  the  Mishnah  was  interdicted  by  the  Emperor 
Justinian,  as  "a  most  execrable  book,"  and  the  only  rea- 
son why  the  Gemara  was  not  subjected  to  the  same  treat- 
ment was  that  it  did  not  yet  exist  in  writing  in  his  days. 


18  THE  GRATZ  COLLEGE   OF  PHILADELPHIA. 

"  From  Justinian,"  says  my  lamented  friend,  Emanuel 
Deutsch,  "down  to  Clement  VIII  and  later,  .... 
both  the  secular  and  the  spiritual  powers,  kings 
and  emperors,  popes  and  anti-popes,  vied  with  each  other 
in  hurling  anathemas  and  bulls  and  edicts  of  wholesale 
confiscation  and  conflagration  against  this  luckless  book. 
Thus,  within  a  period  of  less  than  fifty  years — and  these 
forming  the  latter  half  of  the  sixteenth  century — it  was 
publicly  burnt  no  less  than  six  different  times,  and  that 
not  in  single  copies,  but  wholesale,  by  the  wagon-load. 
Julius  III  issued  his  proclamation  against  what  he  gro- 
tesquely calls  the  '  Gemaroth-Talmud  '  in  1553  and  1555, 
Paul  IV  in  1559,  Pius  V  in  1566,  Clement  VIII  in  1592 
and  1599." 

Twelve  thousand  copies  were  burned  in  the  latter  year 
in  Italy  alone. 

"  Pope  Gregory  IX,  in  1239,  decreed  the  cremation  of 
the  Talmud,  and  hundreds  and  thousands  of  copies  were 
burnt  in  France  and  Italy.  In  1264,  Pope  Clement  IV 
set  the  penalty  of  death  on  whatsoever  person  should 
harbor  a  copy  of  the  Talmud  in  his  house."  I  quote 
this  from  the  introduction  to  Dikduke  So'frim  by 
Rabbinowicz  (of  whom  we  shall  have  to  speak  yet  to- 
night), as  it  refers  to  the  period  of  copying  books  by 
hand. 

Writing  and  selling  the  Talmud  under  such  conditions 
must  necessarily  have  had  an  injurious  effect  on  the 
manner  of  its  reproduction,  not  to  speak  of  the  abbrevia- 
tions necessitated  by  poverty  for  the  sake  of  saving  space 
and  costly  material,  and  the  confusion  resulting  there- 
from. Final  syllables,  for  instance,  were  marked  by  a 
little  stroke  on  top,  and  the  reader  or  the  next  following 
copyist  had  the  choice  between  the  singular  and  the 


HISTORY  AND  FUTURE  OF  THE  TALMUD  TEXT.—JA8TROW.         19 

plural  number,  between  the  masculine  and  the  feminine 
gender.  An  innumerable  host  of  technical  terms  were 
indicated  by  initials,  many  of  which  allowed  of  two  or 
three  different  interpretations. 

Especially  confusing  are  the  abbreviations  of  proper 
names,  initials  like  Resh  Yod  0""l),  permitting  the  read- 
ings, Rabbi  Yishak,  Rabbi  Judah,  Rabbi  Yishmael, 
Rabbi  Jonathan,  and  so  forth. 

Hence  it  is  not  surprising  that  discrepancies,  some- 
times very  material  ones,  exist  between  the  few  manu- 
script copies  of  the  Talmud  still  extant  in  Munich 
and  Rome,  Oxford  and  Florence,  Cambridge,  Hamburg, 
and  other  seats  of  learning.  It  is  surprising  that  there 
are  no  more  of  these  variations,  and  that,  on  the  arrival 
of  the  Talmudic  text  at  its  third  stage,  the  printing 
period,  it  was  possible  to  produce  tolerably  uniform  and 
measurably  correct  editions. 

The  printing  of  the  Talmud  began  as  early  as  1494  in 
Soncino.  The  luckless  book  was  still  under  the  ban  of 
the  papal  and  imperial  interdicts,  and  even  when,  thanks 
to  the  untiring  efforts  of  influential  Jews  and  Christians, 
fortified  by  offers  of  bribes  more  or  less  open  and  direct, 
permission  to  print  was  granted  (by  Pope  Leo  X,  in  1520), 
it  was  so  guarded  and  restricted  as  to  make  a  complete 
and  accurate  edition  an  impossibility.  Passages  believed 
to  be  hostile  to  Christianity  were  to  be  omitted,  or,  what 
is  worse,  modified,  and  the  entire  treatise  'Abodah  Zarah, 
containing  laws  concerning  idolatry  and  dealing  with 
idolaters,  was  to  be  suppressed  from  the  Basle- Venice  edi- 
tion, the  bad  conscience  of  the  censor  making  him  sus- 
pect that  idolatry  in  the  Talmud  was  merely  a  disguise 
for  Christianity. 

Up  to  this  day,  wherever  the  sword  of  the  censor  has 


20  THE   GRATZ  COLLEGE   OF  PHILADELPHIA. 

not  yet  been  sheathed,  as,  for  instance,  in  Russia,  that 
treatise,  which,  by  the  way,  is  a  veritable  treasure-house 
of  antiquities,  must  be  printed  without  the  running  title 
"  'Abodah  Zarah"  on  its  pages. 

That  the  permission  granted  by  Leo  X  did  not  secure 
immunity  from  persecution,  we  learn  from  the  fact  men- 
tioned before,  that  autos-da-fe,  were  renewed  at  intervals 
from  1533  to  1599.  In  fact,  when,  in  1564,  at  the 
Council  of  Trent,  the  Italian  Jews  petitioned  for 
permission  to  republish  the  Talmud,  the  license  granted 
was,  in  spite  of  a  vast  amount  of  Jewish  money  in  the 
pockets  of  the  Bishops,  still  more  restrictive.  Even  the 
title  Talmud  was  to  be  omitted.  We  do  not  find,  how- 
ever, that  the  Italian  printing  houses  availed  themselves 
of  this  dubious  mercy. 

I  shall  pass  over  the  deficiencies  of  the  early  editions, 
caused  by  the  lack  of  experience  in  proof-reading,  in 
order  to  say  a  word  about  the  disfigurements  of  the 
printed  texts  through  the  ignorant  fanaticism  of  the 
censors,  and  no  less  through  the  self-restriction  which 
timid  publishers  practiced  in  order  to  protect  their  edi- 
tions from  governmental  or  Church  interference. 

A  few  instances  will  suffice  to  give  you  an  idea  of  the 
confusion  created  through  these  censorial  changes.  In 
the  countries  under  the  control  of  the  Catholic  Church 
"Rome"  was  under  the  ban,  and  with  it  all  the  disguises 
it  had  assumed  in  early  days,  such  as  "  Edom,"  "  Aram," 
and  the  like.  For  "  Rome  "  it  was  necessary  to  substitute 
"  Persia,"  or  "  Greece,"  or  "  Egypt,"  or  some  other  appel- 
lative. 

Again,  in  countries  where  the  Greco-Catholic  or  Ortho- 
dox Church  was  dominant,  "  Yavan  "  (Greeks)  had  to  be 
avoided,  and  some  other  nationality  had  to  take  its  place. 


HISTORY  AND  FUTURE  OF  THE  TALMUD  TEXT.—JASTROW.        21 

For  example :  In  Megillah  lla,  the  Scriptural  pro- 
phecy, "  And  yet  for  all  that,  when  they  be  in  the  land 
of  their  enemies,  I  will  not  reject  them,  nor  will  I  abhor 
them,  to  destroy  them  utterly,  to  break  my  covenant 
with  them,  for  I  am  the  Lord  their  God," — is  made  the 
subject  of  interpretation. 

"  I  did  not  reject  them  "  (says  the  Talmud)  in  the  days 
of  the  Greeks  (meaning  the  Maccabean  days),  "  and  I  did 
not  abhor  them  "  in  the  days  of  Vespasian  the  Csesar 
(meaning  in  the  days  of  the  destruction  of  the  Temple, 
when  the  very  existence  of  the  Jewish  people  was  threat- 
ened with  dissolution);  "  to  destroy  them  utterly  "  alludes 
to  the  persecution  by  Haman ;  "  to  break  my  covenant 
with  them  "  refers  to  the  days  of  the  Romans — mean- 
ing those  days  of  friendly  intercourse  between  Rabbi 
Judah  han-Nasi  and  his  successors,  and  the  Roman 
emperors  Antoninus  Pius  and  his  successor,  the  philoso- 
pher, Marcus  Aurelius. 

In  any  edition  of  the  Talmud  issued  after  and  copied 
from  the  Basle  edition  (1578-81)  "Nebuchadnezzar"  is 
found  to  be  substituted  for  "  Vespasian  the  Caesar, "  and 
"the  days  of  the  Persians"  for  "the  days  of  the 
Romans."  Thus,  it  will  be  seen  how  the  entire  historical 
perspective  is  destroyed  by  these  changes. 

Another  favorable  opportunity  for  maltreatment  by 
the  censor  was  furnished  by  the  word  nokhri  or  Goy 
(stranger  or  gentile).  It  had  to  be  changed  wherever 
it  pained  the  eye  of  the  inquisitor,  sometimes  into  Accum, 
an  abbreviation  for  "  worshiper  of  stars  and  planets  ", 
at  other  times  into  Kuthi,  the  name  of  the  Samaritan 
sect  which,  in  the  early  Talmudic  days,  played  an 
important  part  in  Jewish  ritual  legislation ;  at  times, 
again,  Kuthi  appeared  to  the  censor  too  thin  a  disguise 


22  THE  GRATZ  COLLEGE   OF  PHILADELPHIA. 

for  Christian,  and  Kushi  (Ethiopian  or  Negro)  was 
inserted  in  its  place,  so  that  suddenly  to  the  surprise 
of  the  Talmudic  student  the  poor  Negro  appeared  in  a 
business  transaction  or  in  a  ritual  question. 

Imagine  the  confusion  which  this  promiscuous  use  of 
words  creates,  both  in  legal  discussions  and  decisions  and 
in  historical  and  archaic  allusions  ! 

Only  he  who  has  lived  under  censorial  supervision  can 
form  an  idea  of  the  depth  of  stupidity,  in  conjunction 
with  bureaucratic  petty  tyranny,  a  censor  is  capable  of 
displaying 

"  He  who  has  no  wife,  lives  without  joy,  without  bless- 
ing, without  good  ;  without  joy,  for  it  is  said,  '  And  thou 
shalt  rejoice,  thou  and  thy  house' ;  without  blessing,  for 
we  read,  '  To  cause  a  blessing  to  rest  on  thy  house '; 
without  good,  for  the  Scripture  says,  '  It  is  not  good  for 
man  to  be  alone.'  "  (Yebarnoth  62b). 

Who,  but  an  incorrigible  old  bachelor,  could  have  any 
objection  to  this  gallant  tribute  to  womanhood  ?  Yet, 
the  censors  are  shrewd  men ;  they  look  into  the  hearts  of 
those  perfidious  Talmudic  teachers,  and  discover  in  this 
apparently  harmless  sentiment  a  malicious  reflection  on 
the  celibacy  of  the  Catholic  clergy,  sublimely  oblivious 
of  the  anachronism. 

And  the  censors,  being  wise  men,  knew  how  to  turn 
aside  an  arrow  hurled  against  their  holy  religion,  and 
now  we  read,  "  A  Yehudi  that  has  no  wife,  lives  without 
joy,"  etc.  The  Church  is  saved,  and  the  cursed  Jews 
are  permitted  to  worship  wicked  woman  as  they  please, 
preparatory  to  the  eternal  damnation  awaiting  them, 
when  they  leave  this  home  of  the  flesh. 

A  modern  example  although  not  bearing  on  Talmudic 
texts,  may  serve  to  illustrate  censorial  ingenuity  : 


HISTORY  AND  FUTURE  OF  THE  TALMUD  TEXT.—JASTROW.         23 

"  Man  is  the  slave  of  his  passions."  Is  there  anything 
objectionable  in  this  phrase  to  the  most  thin-skinned 
absoluist?  Yet,  a  Russian  censor  discovered  that  the 
word  slave,  which,  in  the  Slavic  tongues,  is  rendered  by 
unfree,  awakens  rebellious  thoughts,  which  it  were  better 
to  put  to  sleep  again,  ere  they  do  any  mischief.  And 
this  sentence,  which  appeared  in  a  little  school-book 
of  exercises  for  translation  from  Polish  into  Hebrew  and 
vice  versa,  was  changed  into,  "  Man  is  the  MOOR  of  his 
passions."  Perhaps  the  poetic  censor  thought  of  Shake- 
speare and  his  "  Othello." 

Imagine,  if  you  can,  the  condition,  under  such  circum- 
stances, of  literature  in  general,  and  of  Jewish  literature 
in  particular,  always  apt  to  arouse  the  censor's  jealous 
suspicion  ;  and  again  the  most  cruelly  abused  of  all  was, 
and  in  some  places  still  is,  the  Talmud. 

Even  the  latest  editions,  and  even  those  published  in 
free  countries,  show  the  traces  of  this  maltreatment,  and 
the  task  of  purging  the  Talmud  from  these  woful 
corruptions  will  have  to  call  for  the  ingenuity  and 
critical  acumen  of  many  a  scholar,  before  they  can  be 
entirely  eliminated. 

With  the  exception,  however,  of  these  political 
changes,  our  printed  editions,  on  the  whole,  show  careful 
textual  care,  and  compare  favorably  with  the  manu- 
scripts extant. 

In  three  successive  centuries  the  text  of  the  Babylonian 
Talmud  has  been  revised  by  three  critics  of  deep  penetra- 
tion and  ingenious  intuition. 

Solomon  Luria,  known  by  the  abbreviation,  Maharshal, 
Joel  Sirks,  named  after  his  work,  Bah  (an  abbreviation 
of  Beth  Hadash),  and  Isaiah  Berlin  or  Pick, — these  three 
men,  living  in  the  sixteenth,  seventeenth,  and  eighteenth 


24  THE   GRATZ   COLLEGE   OF  PHILADELPHIA. 

centuries,  respectively,  have  applied  their  vast  erudition 
to  the  thankless  task  of  reconstructing  a  correct  text,  as 
far  as  it  could  be  done  by  comparing  parallel  passages 
and  incidental  quotations  in  the  vast  post-Talmudic 
literature,  and  by  consulting  the  context. 

Their  services  must  be  regarded  as  inestimable. 

On  a  smaller  scale,  and  in  a  more  incidental  way,  in 
our  own  days,  men  like  Rapoport,  Reggio,  Luzzatto, 
Krochmal,  Schor,  Geiger,  Graetz,  Carmoly,  Perles,  and  a 
host  of  less  well  known  scholars,  have  furnished  contribu- 
tions, more  or  less  valuable,  towards  a  restoration  of  the 
Talmud  text,  which  the  future  editor  of  Mishnah  and 
Gemara  will  have  to  consult  and  reckon  with. 

But  all  these  contributions,  from  Maharshal  down  to 
Perles,  are,  as  it  were,  personal  equations,  which  may  or 
may  not  be  accepted,  but  at  all  events  must  be  carefully 
sifted  by  the  future  editor.  The  main  material  for 
textual  criticism  lies  in  the  manuscripts  preserved,  in 
their  comparison  with  the  earliest  works  on  Talmudic 
subjects,  and  in  the  philological  achievements  of  the 
most  recent  times  in  the  province  of  Semitic  studies. 

To  collect  the  material  from  manuscripts  and  early 
writers  was  the  life-work,  unfinished  alas,  of  the  late 
Raphael  Rabbinowicz. 

Subventioned  and  assisted  by  a  Maecenas,  himself  a 
scholar  and,  strange  to  say  a  man  of  wealth, — the  late 
Abraham  Merzbacher,  of  Munich, — Rabbinowicz  succeed- 
ed in  collecting  and  noting  variants  from  all  manuscripts 
accessible,  as  well  as  from  the  earliest  and  rarest  editions, 
and  from  incidental  early  citations  in  the  'Arukh,  the 
Talmudic  dictionary  of  the  eleventh  century,  and  in 
many  other  books,  published  and  unpublished. 


HISTORY  AND  FUTURE  OF  THE  TALMUD  TEXT.—JASTROW.        25 

To  complete  this  collection  should  be  the  first  of  the 
preliminar}r  tasks  of  the  future  editor. 

But  where  will  you  find  a  man,  like  Rabbinowicz, 
combining  vast  erudition  with  utter  self-abnegation, 
willing  to  do  bricklayer's  work  for  the  future  builder, 
contented,  above  all,  with  a  sparse  subsistence  during 
his  years  of  study,  and  ready  to  devote  the  intervals 
between  the  publication  of  one  volume  and  the  prepar- 
ation of  the  next  to  travelling  about  and  selling  his 
work,  in  order  to  collect  the  means  with  which  to  pay 
his  printer  and  his  grocer? 

Or  where  will  you  find  a  banker,  like  Merzbacher,  with 
a  library  of  rarest  books,  and  liberality  no  less  rare  ? 

Of  scholars  qualified  for  the  work  there  is  no  lack  in 
Europe,  but  the  time  has  passed  when  Jewish  scholar- 
ship goes  a-begging;  it  can  afford  to  be  begged,  now 
that  it  finds  a  home  in  universities  and  colleges. 

I  lift  up  mine  eyes  to  the  mountains  of  Jewish  wealth 
— whence  will  the  banker  come  ? 

But,  granted  that  there  be  the  man  arid  the  means, 
we  should  have  the  material  merely  for  a  textually 
correct  or  nearly  correct  edition,  one  which  might  be 
called  a  Variorum  edition  of  the  Talmud. 

A  specimen  of  such  an  edition  was  furnished  in  the 
year  1886,  when,  at  the  suggestion  of  Professors  Theodor 
Noldeke  and  D.  H.  Miiller,  under  the  auspices  of  the 
International  Oriental  Congress,  assembled  in  Vienna, 
the  lector  at  the  Vienna  Beth  Hammidrash,  Mr.  Mayer 
Friedman,  tentatively  edited  one  treatise  of  the  Talmud, 
the  treatise  Maccoth,  with  critical  notes  and  an  occasional 
brief  commentary  in  Hebrew. 

Though  I  cannot  approve  of  the  style  of  the  critical 
notes,  and  much  less  of  the  form  of  the  commentary  and 


26  THE   GRATZ  COLLEGE   OF  PHILADELPHIA. 

critical  remarks,  which,  to  an  uninitiated  student,  are  as 
difficult  to  unriddle  as  the  main  text,  yet  Mr.  Friedman 
has  proved  that  he  would  be  able  to  give  us  what  is 
desired,  if  sufficiently  endowed  with  means  and  leisure, 
and  supported  by  the  advice  of  competent  colaborers 
in  the  field. 

More  difficult  will  it  be  to  satisfy  the  demands  of  what, 
in  our  days,  we  call  the  Higher  Criticism. 

To  borrow  a  metaphor  from  geology,  there  are,  espe- 
cially in  the  Gemara,  layers  representing  different  ages 
and  epochs  in  the  growth  of  this  unique  literature ;  but 
they  have  been  inextricably  fused  by  the  skilful  editorial 
hands  that  gave  the  Babylonian  Gemara  its  present 
shape. 

A  critical  eye  can  easily  distinguish,  but  no  hand  can 
separate  them  without  destroying  the  characteristic  text- 
ure of  the  Talmud. 

Permit  me  to  give  you  a  specimen  of  these  geological 
strata. 

Here  is  a  Mishnah,  at,  the  beginning  of  Pesahim,  say- 
ing, "  On  the  evening  of  the  fourteenth  [of  Nisan]  leav- 
ened matter  is  to  be  searched  for  by  candle  light." 

For  "the  evening,"  the  Mishnah  uses  the  word  Or 
("UK),  which  commonly  denotes  light.  The  original 
meaning  of  the  root  0r(TiX)is  "to  break  through,"  and 
as  we  speak  of  the  break  of  day  and  the  breaking  in  of 
the  night,  so  the  Hebrew  uses  the  word  Or  in  that 
double  sense,  and  the  Mishnah,  literally  translated, 
reads  :  "  At  the  breaking  in  of  the  fourteenth  day  leav- 
ened matter  is  searched  for,"  etc. 

Based  on  this  double  meaning  of  the  word  Or,  a  dis- 
cussion is  started  in  the  Gemara:  "What  is  Orf  Rab 
Huna  said,  Naglie  ;  Rab  Judah  said,  Lele.  Naglie  is  the 


HISTORY  AND  FUTURE  OF  THE  TALMUD  TEXT.—JA8TROW.        27 

Chaldaic  equivalent  of  the  Hebrew  Or,  having  exactly 
the  same  double  meaning  of  day-break  and  "night- 
break,"  but,  like  Or,  more  commonly  used  for  light.  Thus, 
Rab  Huna  translates  Or  with  Naghe,  and  Rab  Judah 
with  Lele,  which  means  night."  This  is  the  first  layer. 

Now,  in  order  to  initiate  the  reader  into  the  discussion 
following  this  philological  controversy  over  the  meaning 
of  Or,  an  editorial  remark  is  inserted,  which  says : 
"  The  first  impression  was  that  he  who  said  Naghe  meant 
really  Naghe  (that  is,  light  or  morning),  as  he  who  said 
Lele  meant  really  Lele  (night)."  This  is  the  second  layer. 

After  this  editorial  note,  the  flood-gates  of  discussion 
are  opened. 

Vers.e  after  verse  from  the  Bible  is  adduced  to  prove 
that  Or  stands  for  daylight  or  for  evening,  respectively, 
and  every  argument  for  or  against  is  refuted  more  or  less 
ingeniously.  Even  this  discussion  is  interspersed  with 
incidental  citations  of  older  sayings  connected  with  the 
interpretation  of  the  quoted  Bible  verses. 

The  arguments  from  Biblical  usage  leaving  the  ques- 
tion as  to  the  meaning  of  Or  undecided,  post-Biblical 
usage  is  adduced  in  favor  of  the  one  or  the  other  of  the 
two  opinions,  and  a  number  of  citations  are  made  from 
Mishnahs,  both  such  as  have  found  a  place  in  the  collec- 
tion of  Rab  Judah  han-Nasi,  and  such  as  were  not  deemed 
worthy  of  his  sanction,  yet  continued  to  live  and  to  be 
studied  from  written  copies  or  verbal  tradition.  These 
are  all  older  elements,  some  of  which  can  be  traced  to 
extant  literature,  while  others  would  have  been  entirely 
lost  but  for  the  accident  of  this  discussion.  They  form  a 
third  layer. 

The  argument  pro  and  con  ends  with  the  indisputable 
evidence  that  the  Or  in  the  Mishnah,  from  which  sprang 


28  THE   GRATZ   COLLEGE    OF  PHILADELPHIA. 

all  this  trouble,  is  meant  for  night,  and  the  editorial 
remark,  which  introduced  the  discussion,  is  here  con- 
tinued, explaining  that  there  was  no  difference  of  opin- 
ion between  R.  Huna  and  R.  Judah,  both  meaning 
evening,  only  that  in  Rab  Huna's  home,  the  beginning 
of  the  night  is  called  Naghe,  whereas  in  R.  Judah's  home 
the  more  common  word  Lele  is  used. 

It  may  be  remembered  that  it  was  the  unwritten  law 
of  tradition  that  the  report  of  the  discussion  must  be 
verbatim,  and  for  how  many  most  interesting  linguistic 
data  we  are  indebted  to  this  literal  faithfulness! 

Suppose  a  modern  editor  of  the  Talmud  would,  as  has 
actually  been  proposed,  discard  the  entire  discussion  on 
the  meaning  of  Or,  based  on  an  erroneous  presump- 
tion, contenting  himself  with  the  editorial  observations 
which  introduce  and  end  the  controversy,  would  not  the 
scholarly  world  raise  a  well-justified  protest  against  such 
a  mutilation  ? 

The  recent  attempt  in  this  country  at  producing  "  the 
original  Talmud,"  as  the  editor  modestly  called  it,  serves 
to  illustrate  the  impossibility  of  severing  the  various 
layers  without  destroying  the  continuity  of  sense  and 
logical  development. 

An  abridged  or  "  original  "  Talmud  is  neither  possible 
nor  desirable,  the  latest  insertions  and  seemingly  trivial 
digressions  being  as  interesting  as  the  earliest  elements. 

What  we  need  for  the  future  text  of  the  Talmud  is  a 
differentiation  of  the  various  layers  by  differences  of 
type. 

I  would  suggest  that  a  different  type  be  used  for  the 
Mishnah,  to  distinguish  it  from  the  Gemara  more  clearly 
than  in  the  present  arrangement,  and  to  make 
the  different  layers  of  the  Gemara  itself  distinguishable 


HISTORY  AND  FUTURE  OF  THE  TALMUD  TEXT.—JASTROW.         29 

from  one  another,  I  would  suggest  that  the  main  discus- 
sion be  typographically  differentiated  from  the  digres- 
sions. 

Again,  some  typographical  device  should  be  invented 
for  making  the  citations  of  older  traditional  elements 
visible  to  the  eye. 

I  would  not  favor  a  polychrome  Talmud,  after  the 
manner  of  Prof.  Haupt's  edition  of  the  Bible,  its  mere 
cost,  if  nothing  else,  being  a  sufficient  reason  for  reject- 
ing that  idea.  This,  however,  is  a  mere  technical  ques- 
tion. 

What  we  need  is  a  COMPLETE  Talmud,  with  an  ap- 
proximately correct  text  and  intelligible  Variorum  notes, 
and  with  a  graphic  illustration  of  the  growth  of  the 
Talmudic  text,  from  its  beginning  as  a  verbal  tradition 
to  its  close  and  final  redaction. 

It  is  needless  to  say  that  a  work  of  this  kind  would 
require  the  co-operation  of  the  best  scholars  in  the  Jew- 
ish world  and  the  financial  support  of  the  Jewish  com- 
munity at  large. 

Who  will  undertake  it? 

History  will  answer  this  question.  I  am  content  with 
having  propounded  it. 


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